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Comment by mistercow | Hacker News Reader

Tom 7 mentioned a thing in one of his videos, which is to keep a list, and write down every idea when you think of it, regardless of how stupid it is. Winnowing is for later. That way, when you have the energy to work on a project, you don’t have to waste it on coming up with an idea.

It really makes a huge difference in what you can get done with side projects. You probably have more interesting ideas than you think you do, but if having them doesn’t line up with having the time and energy to act on them (or even to just expand on them), they’ll fade away.

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100%. And the "weird" (not weird -- useful!) thing that happens with time is that once you start writing down ideas (and you should definitely note pretty much all of them - regardless of how good/bad they seem), your mind gets into "having more ideas" mode... You sort of get a second wind - or more accurately, you start developing your "what if" muscle. And the stronger it gets, the more "what if"s you'll have. And some of those will 100% be really really good (whatever good means to you).

It's also ok to have really """bad""" ideas. They're always funny to read back (a month/year) later. They're fun to share with friends and strangers. And sometimes they lead to good ones as you think about what made you think the bad ones were bad in the first place.

But when you write it down - please include more than two or three words - because it's hillarious to come back to a list when a lot of time has past to see an idea written simply as 'The pope of physics' <- from my own list. I have no idea what I was thinking...

I have the inverse problem. Do you have any advice for me?

I have no problem coming up with, and remembering, cool projects. I just rarely have the energy or the lasting enthusiasm to actually follow through.

Find a partner who gives energy to you, and who you give energy to. Not always easy to find, but if you do, then its easier to work on stuff like this.

I assume you mean business partner and not romantic partner. My romantic partner gives me great energy but would be like "Why are you playing with that soldering iron and not with me?"

But yes, a good business partner (or two) is, for me anyway, a requirement to move something from idea to reality.

Then play with your romantic partner first, 2 minutes later you can work on the project together :^)

One hour on average - sometimes two ;)

Nah man. It's a race. I finish first, I win. I win every time.

Gottem

I would start working on one if I were you.

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